


Sweet Oblivion

by Severina



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied Daryl Dixon/Beth Greene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3305093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to press the heels of his hands to his temples to quiet the voice in his skull. Used to be that voice sounded like his old man, then Merle. Now it just sounds like him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Oblivion

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season 5A. Fic 02 of 05 written for the tv_universe 'otherwordly' challenge on LJ, for the prompt "lethe" (oblivion, or something to make you enter oblivion and forget).
> 
> * * *

A quick run into town, Rick tells him. Check out that pharmacy with the shattered windows. Might still be something inside worth saving.

But there's something else behind his eyes. Daryl sees it; everyone sees it. 

This isn't about looking for Advil packets.

* * *

"I know you cared for her," Rick says.

Daryl feels his shoulders tense; keeps his gaze pinpointed on the drugstore in the distance. The walk from their temporary campsite had been quiet up to this point, unless you counted the thoughts swirling through his head. The ones that matched the steady stride of his boots through the dirt and then onto the concrete. 

Step. _There ain't no point._  
Step. _World's gone to shit._  
Step. _Everyone good gets taken._  
Step. _No such thing as hope._  
Step. _She's gone._

Step. _She's dead._

He wants to press the heels of his hands to his temples to quiet the voice in his skull. Used to be that voice sounded like his old man, then Merle. Now it just sounds like him.

The sunlight bounces off the pavement, spearing into his brain, adding to the pounding in his head. He concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, on matching his pace to the words whirling in his brain. 

"Daryl—" Rick tries again.

"Leave it," he grits out. 

Most people listen when he uses that voice. Maggie and Glenn have been giving him a wide berth, huddling into each other, making him grind his teeth. Carol frowns and Michonne scowls but they both keep away; Abraham and his gang mutter under their breath but don't have the balls to take him on. But Rick grabs his arm, pulls him to a stop in the middle of the street.

"I know—" he starts.

Daryl wrenches his arm away. "You don't know shit, Rick," he says. He feels his hair stick to his cheeks when he shakes his head, blinks away moisture that may be sweat or may be tears. Takes in a thick scalding breath of Georgia soup and steps back. "You don't."

"I know that she'd want you to carry on," Rick says. "I know that she'd want you to get Noah to safety. He says there's people in Richmond, good people—"

Daryl doesn't know he's going to do it. One moment he is standing with his head bowed, studying the cracked cement and knowing that Rick is bending slightly at the waist, trying to catch his eye. The next moment his fist is connecting with Rick's chin and Rick is staggering backwards. The next punch catches Rick high on the cheek and he flops down on one knee, one arm reaching out to break his fall. His palm flattens on a parked car and the alarm sounds, warbling and broken but loud enough. Loud enough.

The walkers spill from the side streets like water from a geyser.

He pulls Rick to his feet, but when the man grabs his bicep and points toward an alley back the way they came he shakes his head. Rips his arm out of Rick's grip and shoves him away. He sees Rick's mouth drop open and only then realizes that he's yelling, shouting, screaming at the top of his lungs, but even later he has no idea what the words were. Maybe they weren't words at all. 

He gives Rick a final push in the other direction before diving into the mass of walkers. Slashes out with his knife, his fists; kicks out with his boots and hears bones break. Breaks through to the other side and then turns to whistle, to wave them on toward him before he takes off at a run, vaults an old barricade of busted furniture and sagging mattresses overrun with kudzu, dives between crashed cars and overturned trashcans. His boots pound on the pavement and the litany repeats with every step. _She's gone. She's dead. No hope._

The herd has thinned out a little by the time he stumbles into the house at the outskirts of the town. He leans against the door, bends at the knees and tries to regain his breath before doing a quick search. Windows that were once boarded up now have planks askew and entire panes open to the outside; a flimsy doorframe with a broken lock at the back. Even as he watches one of the walkers sticks a skeletal hand missing three fingers through a broken window, snarls and snaps and tries to reach for him before being joined by another, and another, and another.

He takes refuge in the basement. Three bodies, moldering and shrunken, curled together on the sofa. The blood from their shattered skulls has dried to a dull and faded brown, mixing with the pattern of roses on the couch. 

He closes his eyes and sees Beth's head flung back, the blood gushing outward and spattering on him like rain.

He overturns the sofa, grabs a pool cue from the table and smashes through the canned goods stacked up so neatly there, breaks the glass coffee table with an unsatisfying crack. Rages through the room until he sees the bottles lined up behind the bar and then lets the pool cue drop from his fingers, snatches the first bottle he sees and sinks to his knees as he unscrews the cap.

He lifts his head after the first swallow, listens. The walkers are inside now, their stumbling footsteps loud overhead. He hears the first of them stagger into the basement door, the scrabbling of long broken nails on the wood. It's a sturdy door but the jamb is shit, just like the outside doors. With enough pressure, enough bodies surging against it… 

He takes another pull on the liquor. It burns going down, sickly sweet, almost enough to turn his stomach. So he forces down another swallow and then another and continues until the taste doesn't bother him anymore; leans his head back against the wood paneling and closes his eyes. 

The litany tries to take up residence in his brain, accompanied as always by the slow-motion image of Beth falling backward, her big blue eyes wide and unseeing. But he forces it away, replaces it instead with the memory of her smile. On the porch, half lit and with the moonlight shining in her hair. Training her on the bow, her smug little grin when she finally hit the tree they'd been using as a target all damn day. Shy and awkward when he asked her to sing for him again.

He takes another slug of the liquor, blinks blearily when the door above him crashes into the wall. The walker's moans are louder now, and he hears one stumble onto the steps before falling the rest of the way down. He knows he should probably get up, make some kind of stand, but there really isn't any point. There's no hope, no future, no good people left. He knows that now. He fixes Beth's smile in his mind, and lets himself rest. 

It's only when the first walker rounds the corner of the bar that Daryl realizes he's been drinking peach schnapps.


End file.
